I was actually thinking about the good ol' days, looking at photo albums and I ran into one where I was pictured boarding an Aviaco plane. I used to fly them a great deal within Spain, as they were a great alternative to IB...I have found to be missing them quite a bit and now have reverted to flying Air Europa on my inner-Spanish flights. So who here misses them and please give us reasons why...etc...
Regards

Whilst the Spanish domestic market was their bread and butter, they also operated a pretty extensive charter operation to most of northern Europe during the 1970's and 80's, flying holidaymakers to the popular Spanish resorts. Their DC-8's and DC-9's were a common sight at many airports in the UK.

Aviaco was always linked to Iberia. First, because both of them used to belong to INI (later known as SEPI). Second, because IB was always like "the parent company" which partially controlled AO's operations, and third because they completely took over Aviaco in recent years.

In fact, during the late 80s and early 90s, Iberia did their first tests about having a "hub" for Central American flights somewhere between Miami and the Dominican Republic, and for that purpose they placed an Aviaco DC9 in Santo Domingo. A DC-10 used to fly from MAD to SDQ carrying pax that would later connect to Central America being on the DC9. It lasted only for about 1 year before they moved their operations to MIA.

Also during the years that IB DC9s operated to Central America from the famous (now disappeared) MIA "hub" (before being replaced by MD87s and later by A319s) it was common to see Aviaco's DC9s among them...In fact, when I moved to Guatemala in 1998 (stayed there until 2003) I arrived there onboard one of AO's DC9s.